This credit-card-sized 'dumb phone' helped me de-stress and disconnect for the first time in weeks

Posted March 20, 2017 5:30 PM

This credit-card-sized 'dumb phone' helped me de-stress and disconnect for the first time in weeks

Here's an experiment: Try to remember the last time you purposely left the house without your smartphone.

If you're having trouble coming up with an answer, you're not alone — and you're exactly the type of person the makers of the Light Phone are targeting.

The Light Phone is the anti-smartphone. It does two things and two things only: It sends calls and receives them.

It doesn't text, it doesn't connect to Twitter, and it doesn't have a camera. All you're able to do with the Light Phone is have your calls sent to it via call forwarding and program in 10 speed dials. Light's founders actually say the phone is designed to be used "as little as possible."

So why would a company build a product it doesn't really want you to use? Easy: To help cure smartphone addiction.

I tested the Light Phone — which costs $150 — to see if I could leave my phone at home and "go Light." It was a lot harder than I thought.

Productivity...but at the cost of connectivity

I decided to begin testing the Light Phone during a work day to see if it made me more productive.

That was a huge mistake.

For starters, I write about tech for a living and half my job is to cover apps. So testing out a phone during work where you physically can't download an app was extremely stupid of me.

Here's a sampling of my notes during the first few hours I spent using the phone:

10:46 a.m.So far so good.It's way less distracting to have this little guy on my desk instead of having my phone light up constantly with emails, alerts, doubled up Slack messages, etc.

11:17 a.m.OK except now I need to look up something in the App Store aaaaand I can’t

It quickly became apparent that the Light Phone isn't necessarily designed to be used during the work day, at least for people who have a job like mine.

Still, there's something to be said about minimizing your distractions during the day. If I'd been working on something else the day I tested it, like writing a long feature story, the Light Phone would have been the perfect tool for keeping me focused.

Before the know-it-alls get all worked up: Yes, I know you can use the "Do Not Disturb" setting on your iPhone. I'm fully aware you can also put your phone out of your line of sight, or in your bag, or in a drawer. But having a tool that keeps you connected but isn't constantly lighting up, ringing, vibrating, or otherwise pulling your focus is much more effective.